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The outing of W. Mark Felt as Deep Throat has set off a predictable frenzy of Republican bashing and obligatory Dubya/Tricky Dick comparisons. With visions of John Kerry fading in our ever-shortening attention spans, it’s open season on the GOP and you know what that means: Yet another opportunity to directly or indirectly prop up the Democrats as a viable alternative.

Although he does offer a tangential mention to LBJ, Bob Herbert of the New York Times melodramatically reminds us, “with George W. Bush in charge, the nation is mired in yet another tragic period marked by incompetence, duplicity, bad faith, and outright lies coming once again from the very top of the government.”

I wonder: When was the nation NOT mired in incompetence, duplicity, bad faith, and outright lies from the very top of the government? To not ask this question is to grant tacit, undeserved credit to the Democrats.

Before the hair-splitters bombard me with e-mails attempting to defend the Dems, let’s not lose sight of the fact that arguing over who lies less further masks the real crimes. Remember, Nixon was brought down for his role in the Watergate cover-up…not for, say, war crimes in Southeast Asia or Vietnam. The adversarial (sic) press is ever at the ready to topple leaders over misdemeanors but the felony offenses remain taboo. In fact, that same lapdog press willingly plays its part in resurrecting disgraced leaders like Nixon (and turning “I am not a crook” into an enduring punch line). If Nixon had resigned after being charged with mass murder, well, perhaps his public rehabilitation might not have gone as smoothly.

Watergate, Deep Throat, Woodward, Bernstein, etc … these are all smokescreens effectively obscuring the catalog of crime we call American History. Until more Americans recognize both the corporate media and two-party (sic) system for what they truly are, we’re left with sideshows like W. Mark Felt.